Intercultural musicking between Belgium
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
Category
Project Description
Contemporary music in Belgium on one side, Maqom in Uzbekistan on the other side.
Gathering as individuals and receive the performance silently and politely sitting on chairs, or gather as a community and participate actively in the sufi ritual and follow the path of the concentric circles from microcosm to macrocosm: two different ways to be together and to listen to music, two different rituals. My goal is to combine both worlds in order to build a new, third space for their communities.
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Description of the project
Summary
Contemporary music in Belgium on one side, Maqom in Uzbekistan on the other side.
Gathering as individuals and receive the performance silently sitting on chairs, or gather as a community and participate actively in the sufi ritual and follow the path of the concentric circles from microcosm to macrocosm: two different ways to be together and to listen to music, two different rituals. My goal is to combine both worlds in order to build a new, third space for their communities.
Born in Uzbekistan and raised in Belgium, I want to rebuild the bridge between my two cultures through my art practice. I was trained mainly as a contemporary flute player but since two years I met a point where I felt that I needed to explore my roots, and in the same time that the contemporary music world needed to open its perspectives to other musical cultures: it seems that the question of cultural mediation is persistently raised, but never answered.
My research aims to the final result of a new body of works between Uzbekistan and Belgium, but most importantly the goal is to build a cultural mediation addressed towards the new public of this new sub-genre. A cultural mediation based on recognizable cultural elements but that will help the listeners to open themselves and being curious about the cultural elements that they don't know yet.
I feel that in Belgium as a society we need to build a greater awareness of what can extra-European cultures teach us, and what they already brought us in the past, like all the cultural exchanges that happened on the Silk Road, that helped to shape Europe as we know it. My goal is to build more social cohesion through the re-evaluation of the value of the culture of other people.
Key objectives for sustainability
My project is linked to the category of transformational activity that help build social cohesion.
I want to bring communities of listeners of different genres of music together in Belgium and Uzbekistan, because I see culture as a multi-facetted tool, a tool of expression of who we are and how we experience the world around us, not only as art maker but also as public and music listener. I also believe that cultures are not permanent or unmovable, but are growing and evolving every day. This is why I want to explore the possibility of the creation of a new cultural third space based on hybridity and mutual respect. The goal is to use a mix of traditional Uzbek music and new European genres to create a new sub-genre in intercultural composition, and to create new tools of cultural mediation for a new public.
Practically speaking, I want to play the same project in Uzbekistan and in Belgium, with a strong visual, multimedia and scenographic component. People will be sitting in circle around the stage, will be invited to take part in the performance, and will be invited to stay to share drinks and food after the concert in order to be able to talk in an informal way.
I want to encourage the esthetic experience of a multi-media alongside the human experience of talking and bonding around art and culture.
I also noticed that certain places are associated with certain genres and seem welcoming to a certain kind of public.
This is why I want to bring this project in unexpected venues, that in Tashkent normally program only traditional maqom music, or in Belgium that are dedicated to middle eastern folk music.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
My main aesthetic inspiration is one of my most magical childhood memory: the night before Navruz when I was siw years old. We were still living in Tashkent with my parents in an apartment on the 6th floor of Soviet building, and all the buildings formed a big square space in between.
That night, for the solstice of Spring on 21st of March, all the women gathered around big pots placed on a dozen of fires across this big inner court. They were making the Sumalak, the traditional sweet meal, all night long. They were singing, telling stories and jokes and I still keep vivid memories of that night.
That is why my aesthetics for the staging and the placement of the public are about circles and warm light that remind of inviting fireplace.
Key objectives for inclusion
Through this project I want to show that:
- A contemporary music project can be appreciated by lay public
- Ethnicity and its musical expression is a source of pride, inspiration and knowledge.
- A Western and a non-Western cultures can meet respectfully in the same project, creating a new third space.
- Public, Musicians and Composers of both countries can relate to the same project because it contains parts of what they already know and parts that trigger their curiosity.
Innovative character
Many ethnomusicology research projects have been led in Uzbekistan, not only on traditional music but also in Contemporary Music, first by Russian, then Soviet, and then Western researchers. Being born in Uzbekistan and raised in Belgium, I feel like the missing link between the contemporary music of Belgium and Uzbekistan, in the same time expressing my multiplicity of origins and points of view and helping Contemporary Uzbek Music finding its public in Belgium and Vice Versa, the exchange and the learning being mutual and going in two ways.
To be more specific, I will share my research question with you here. Through my research I want to find out:
How can a western-trained musician approach Uzbek maqom and mix it to western contemporary music in a balanced and respectful way, the exchange being mutual, implying an instrumental practice-based learning process as well as an artistic creative process going on in two directions between two countries of different cultures, while generating new repertoire and reaching new audiences?How can a western-trained musician approach Uzbek maqom and mix it to western contemporary music in a balanced and respectful way, the exchange being mutual, implying an instrumental practice-based learning process as well as an artistic creative process going on in two directions between two countries of different cultures, while generating new repertoire and reaching new audiences?
